


Remembering How to Play the Game

by Deannie



Series: Two Gentlemen of Atlantis [8]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 11:52:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Radek and Rodney clear the air after "Duet".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remembering How to Play the Game

**Author's Note:**

> This story was supposed to be number 22 in the series--I've just never gotten 'round to writing most of the rest. However, during the stories I haven't written, Rodney admits to Radek that he has a thing for Shepard and _thinks_ Shep might be bi. If he's lucky. But nothing ever comes of it. Also, there's a very vague reference to Radek's revelations about his family in "Nothing of Consequence." In a perfect world, where I won the lottery and had unlimited time, you'd've already read parts 1 through 21 and it would make sense.
> 
> Thank to Nat and Jenny for the most awesome, intense, and invested betas I've ever had. They helped me shape the history of Radek and Rodney and are never afraid to tell a gal she's barking up the wrong tree. My writing is so much better for having the two of them look at it.

Radek walked into the commissary at precisely 4:15 a.m., praying for an empty room. He sighed--not a soul in sight and a pot of the newly resupplied coffee, warm on the hotplate, as an added bonus.

He should be sleeping. At this point in the night, everyone should be sleeping, save the skeleton crew that guarded the gateroom and watched the skies. And oh, he was so very tired of both of these things.

The long-range sensors had been silent for nearly three months now, making themselves known only briefly, when the Daedalus came and went. No Wraith. No hiveships to come and destroy them. And still, after three months, he could not find it in himself to relax. The threat was there. It was just a question of waiting now.

Waiting, or going off and finding it elsewhere.

The cup in his hands shook a moment before he steadied it. This week had been, almost, too much. If that dart had escaped through the gate; if Colonel Sheppard had not shot it down, even knowing he might have been killing two innocent people...

Killing Rodney.

But no. Rodney was alive and well and as irritating as ever--now. Three days ago, Radek had worried that the annoying chief scientist could never be recovered. Two days ago, he had feared the man would lose his mind.

Today--just today--he was actually looking forward to Rodney's return to active duty. Tomorrow...? Well, tomorrow they would annoy each other as they always did, and they would find new and interesting things in the bowels of the city as Atlantis reawakened, and they would share that knowledge with each other as gleefully as teenagers sharing forbidden magazines stolen from their fathers' closets.

But someday soon, perhaps, the Wraith would rediscover the City of the Ancients and they would all face death again. And that, Radek would not look forward to at all.

"Radek, what are you doing up?"

He looked over at the door to find Rodney McKay standing there, looking tired and pale and not at all his irritated, irritating self.

"I was  _trying_  to have a bit of time alone, thank you." Radek knew his acid remark was a bit false, a bit strained, but he did so want things to be the way they had been between them. Two days ago, he had summarily dismissed Rodney, in front of the other scientists. He hadn't thought about the long-term repercussions of his actions, fixated only on saving Rodney's sanity and his life, but he worried now that his outburst had been damaging to McKay's status as head scientist.

But there had been no choice, really. They had no idea of the consequences to be had from two minds inhabiting the same body, and as he watched McKay's always flawless equations turn to something he'd expect from a very junior member of their science team, he had feared that his friend's ego would not allow him to accept his limitations. And to refuse to do so would almost certainly have meant his mind's dissolution.

There was absolutely no choice. As he told himself with great frequency.

"Sorry," Rodney replied, blithely ignoring Radek's current rudeness and shuffling over to the coffee machine to pour himself a cup. He stood there for a moment, drinking deep and sighing in contentment. After his bliss, he walked boldly over to the table where Radek sat and took the seat opposite him. "You'll just have to deal with company."

"Which, really, I do not desire," Radek quipped back, unsure of how to deal with Rodney in his current non--had Colonel Sheppard called it "snarky"? Yes--his nonsnarky state. McKay still looked exhausted and slightly harried.

"And yet, here I sit." A genuine smile went with the rejoinder, and again, Radek waited for the other shoe to drop. Soon, very soon, now, Rodney would berate him. And Radek would take it--not as he did when McKay was simply asserting his prowess as "the smartest person here, thank you," but as a man who deserves to be taken to task for embarrassing a friend and colleague who was going through more than one should have to in the course of a normal life.

"Then perhaps I shall leave, yes?" he said half-heartedly. He was trying to play their usual game, but Rodney, it seemed, had forgotten the rules.

"Radek, come on," Rodney sighed, irritation shining through his weariness. "What, you think I'm mad?" His head cocked to the side. "Well, I mean, of course I'm mad--not to mention embarrassed, exhausted, and sporting the mother of all hangovers--but..." He shrugged. "I don't hold that little tantrum of yours against you."

A tantrum? Yes, Rodney would certainly choose to look at it that way, wouldn't he? Still, he meant what he said--Radek could see that clearly in his friend's eyes. He sat back in his seat, letting go of the unconscious death grip he'd had on his coffee cup. "I did what I thought was right," he asserted, somehow feeling it very important that he let Rodney know it had been something more than their usual sniping. It had been a matter of McKay's life or death.

"And you  _were_  right." Rodney grinned tiredly at Radek's obvious surprise. "Radek..." He shrugged. "It was weird, okay? It was weird, and I wanted it fixed, and I should have been able to fix it pretty easily, and... and I didn't see a problem." He fell silent for a moment, sipping his coffee before continuing in a softer voice. "Maybe I just didn't want to see a problem."

Radek snorted his incredulity, feeling the energy between them begin to return to a muted sort of normal. "With having two people in your mind? Even  _your_  brain is not that big, I think."

"So you admit I have a large brain? A towering intellect?" Rodney asked with a smile, leaning back to support his ego.

"Large brain, big head..." Radek shrugged. "Is much the same thing."

"You're just jealous."

"Frightened, is more like. A mind like yours is a dangerous thing."

Rodney grinned now, relaxed and almost content. "Brilliance can be so intimidating."

"You would know," Radek responded jovially, chuckling when he saw Rodney catch his double meaning.

They sat in a companionable silence for a few moments, just enjoying their coffee in a way that could only be experienced by men who had spent months using boiled roots of dubious origin for their caffeinated sustenance. Rodney seemed to relax even more, though he still looked as if he should be in bed.

That he chose not to be made Radek wonder what lurked in  _his_  dreams. It must certainly be worse than what lurked in Radek's own, given what Rodney did much of the time. Radek could still see the body of that Wraith and the adrenelin and fear in Carson's eyes...

"How do you do it?" He had to ask. After this week, he felt he needed to understand this part of his friend better. It seemed very much at odds with the man he thought he knew.

"Do what? Astound the world with my crushing intellect?"

Radek clucked at him in irritation, letting Rodney know that he knew he was trying to avoid the subject, before returning to his query. "Going off world. It is... disturbing."

Rodney looked surprised, as if he had never really thought about that question. And for some reason,  _that_  surprised Radek. He would have thought a man like Rodney would be terrified of the dangers inherent in going to distant alien planets with only his teammates and a gun he seemed ill-equipped to use as his protection.

"Disturbing?" Rodney echoed, obviously thinking it over carefully. "Well, the peril is disturbing. The whole Wraith, life-sucking, dying thing is disturbing..." He shrugged, though Radek knew it was only to hide a shudder. "Though you can have that right here at home, come to think of it..." The question seemed to stump him. "I don't know," he finally said. "There's a lot out there to see. It's exciting."

"I do not think this last outing was very exciting for you," Radek replied seriously, watching as his friend's jaw tightened. "It was terrifying for me, and the Wraith was already dead when I got there." That Rodney could have been as well was a thought he did not add.

Rodney took a moment to get himself under control before pasting on a smile. "It's never dull," he stated, trying to be blithe. "And really, who else has the knowledge and intelligence to figure out the puzzles of the galaxy?" He nodded, self-satisfied. "They'd be lost without me."

And Radek knew this game, finally. This was a game they had played before, when it was he who pasted on the smile and pretended that nothing had happened and Rodney who allowed him to do so. How could he not return the favor?

"Yes. Of course they would." His smile turned crafty as he chose to help Rodney change the subject. "So. Katie Brown?"

Rodney dropped his head to the table in not-quite-mock despair. "Katie. God, Radek, she thinks I'm some sort of Lothario!" He looked up, a comical tragedy in his gaze. "Did you know that she asked me out again when she came to see me in the infirmary? Said she wanted me to be the kind of man she saw at dinner that night! That wasn't even a  _man_ , for God's sake!"

Radek chuckled at his friend's antics, watching as more tension drained away from Rodney's face. "Perhaps you should introduce her to Lieutenant Cadman, yes? They would hit it off?"

Rodney shuddered. "They already know each other--unfortunately. And I don't want to think about that. Although..." He cocked his head to the side, obviously thinking thoughts best left to adult film, before dismissing them with a grimace. "No. No, I really don't want to go there. Bad enough she made me  _kiss Carson_  in front of the whole science staff!"

"It was not a good kiss?" Radek asked gleefully.

"Actually... Not bad."

They laughed together for a moment before Radek sobered, thinking about McKay and Carson... and a certain lieutenant colonel. "McKay, I have something..." He shook his head slightly and started again. For all that Rodney had made the confidence earlier, Radek did not think it fair to bring it up himself. "I have been wondering, lately..." Rodney simply watched him, waiting. He was no help at all. "Since you returned from Earth, you and Colonel Sheppard have not been... the same."

Rodney seemed confused by the comment, his eyes darting left and right as he appeared to search his memory. After a long moment, realization broke. "Nothing happened," he finally replied. "On Earth, I mean."

"Ah," Radek murmured. "Here, then?"

Rodney shook his head ruefully. "Nothing happened ever." And there was a romantic sadness in his voice.

"And now," Radek sighed, "I am confused again." He shook his finger at his friend. "You have this effect on people, you know?"

"My towering intellect."

"Your disturbing mind."

"Whatever." Rodney sobered, sipping at his coffee. "Look, I know what I said before, but..." A sad smile tugged at his lip. "Some things just don't happen."

Radek nodded wisely. "Yes. And so, Katie Brown."

A nod as Rodney picked up his now-empty mug. "Katie Brown." He snorted, rising from the table and stifling a yawn. "If she still wants me once she finds out I'm not a woman."

He placed his mug in the dishbin and turned to face Radek, again with that pasted-on smile. "I'm going to bed. Have to get ready for tomorrow." He grimaced. "I don't even want to  _see_  what you've done to my lab!"

Radek grinned, again playing along. "It is very nice. Pink." His grin turned to a smirk. "And there are curtains, now."

There was the briefest hint of a tongue stuck out at him before Rodney turned toward the door. "Goodnight, Radek."

Radek sighed, wondering when things for his friend might change for the better. Never, he thought darkly. Because Rodney McKay was a man who made his life far too difficult.

And Colonel Sheppard was almost as bad.

"Goodnight, Rodney," he murmured to the closing door. "Dream well."

Because dreams could not always be bad, yes? And sometimes, dreams were the only place to get those things that were most desired.

With that sage thought, he chided himself for his romantic side, placed his coffee cup in the dishbin beside Rodney's, and made his own way to bed. To dream well.

* * * * * * *  
The End

 


End file.
